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For months, the only consensus about this year's awards race has been that there is an overall lack of consensus. But the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations Wednesday started to bring some clarity, focusing the conversation around two front-runners — "Birdman" and "Boyhood" — and crystallizing this year as a particularly strong one for smaller films. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's "Birdman" — a gonzo portrait of a washed-up movie star (Michael Keaton) trying to regain his artistic credibility — came out on top with four nominations, including one for its ensemble cast as well as individual nods for Keaton and...

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For months, the only consensus about this year's awards race has been that there is an overall lack of consensus. But the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations Wednesday started to bring some clarity, focusing the conversation around two front-runners...

He has six Academy Award nominations and more than 150 composing credits in film and TV, but Alexandre Desplat is still keen for a new challenge. How about scoring five tonally different films in one year?
"I'd never done an epic movie about war...

No offense to the venerable Hollywood Film Awards, but awards season doesn't actually heat up until Wednesday morning. That's when the Screen Actors Guild will announce its nominations for the best film performances of the year.
This is a big...

As the title character in "Olive Kitteridge," HBO's searing miniseries about a depressive, middle-aged Maine schoolteacher who's short on patience but long on wit, Frances McDormand is unforgettable. But it's a role she might not have found if...

Sometimes the freshest face on the big screen is 80 and counting. Certainly that's true of "Elsa & Fred's" brightest star, Shirley MacLaine.
One of the grande dames of cinema, she's been seen more around the edges than center stage in...

We've been deluged with dozens of variations of "Birdman Soars" headlines in the last couple of days, as Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's ambitious tale of a onetime comic book movie star's quest for reinvention opened to great business last...

Director Drake Doremus had a clear career path ahead of him when his romantic drama "Like Crazy" swept several big awards at Sundance in 2011. With the most buzzed-about movie at the festival in years and an acquisition deal worth millions of...

(This article has been updated since its original posting. See note below.)
Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel" is going strong at the box office as the film's slow expansion — now 304 theaters in its third weekend of release — brought in...

More than just about any other major American filmmaker working today, writer-director Wes Anderson doesn't so much make movies as create worlds. Each of his films takes place in its own strange sovereignty, whether the Texas prep school of...

The release of a new Wes Anderson film has been a highly anticipated event among the quirky filmmaker's fans ever since his breakout success "Rushmore" in 1998.
"The Grand Budapest Hotel," which is debuting in four theaters in New...

The bloodthirsty forces of "300: Rise of an Empire" proved victorious at the box office on its opening weekend, easily surpassing the family-friendly animated movie "Mr. Peabody and Sherman."
"Rise of an Empire," a 3-D...

The Lego Movie
Warner Bros., $28.98; Blu-ray, $35.99/$59.98
Available on VOD June 17.
It seemed like a cynical cash grab when it was announced, but it turned out to be one of 2014's best films. Writer-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller make the...

Some vampires are coming to Cannes.
Organizers of the world's most prestigious film festival have announced that “Only Lovers Left Alive,” Jim Jarmusch’s vampire movie starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, has been added to the competition...

CANNES, France -- The movie world feted an old friend Wednesday night, or at least an old sport. Two weeks after celebrating Baz Luhrmann's big-budget adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel with a throwback party at the Plaza Hotel in New York,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invited 276 new members into the organization on Friday -- 100 more than were included in the 2012 invitees -- including a large number of minorities and women, such as Rosario Dawson, Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh,...

In an overhaul of its Focus Features imprint, Universal Pictures is installing FilmDistrict founder Peter Schlessel as the new head of the specialty movie label. James Schamus, Focus' current chief executive, will leave the company.
Schlessel,...

As part of its ongoing makeover, Focus Features announced a slew of executive changes Tuesday afternoon, including the departure of co-Chief Executive Andrew Karpen.
Earlier this month, parent Universal Pictures set into motion an overhaul of the...

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" opens for business March 7, 2014, with the release of Wes Anderson's much-anticipated new film.
Anderson's 2012 effort, "Moonrise Kingdom," made more than $45 million in the U.S. and earned an Oscar...

A busy week for Wes Anderson watchers has been capped off by the arrival of the trailer for his upcoming "The Grand Budapest Hotel," which opens March 7, 2014.
The film has a typically large and outstanding cast that mixes together Anderson...

Layoffs have begun at Focus Features.
Employees in the specialty label's New York and Los Angeles locations were told Monday whether they would lose their positions, though it is not known how many jobs will be cut. Focus, an imprint of Universal...